Meeting of Orioles

The southern reaches of Guangzhou city were nested right up against the Pearl River, and was a place where the ocean-faring ships of merchants would dock. By the Song Dynasty, these southern areas had already become the commercial heart of the city, and was protected by harbour walls to its west and east.^[1] The area was ravaged by war in the Yuan Dynasty, but business there had recovered since the start of the Ming. However, the area suffered greatly again during the Zhelin Mutiny.^[2] As a result of this, the government built a new city wall on the old site of the harbour walls.^[3] The Encyclopedia of Guangzhou stated:^[4] “In the 42nd year of Jiajing,^[5] the city Censor Wu Guifang,^[6] due to the panicking of residents outside the city about the Zhelin Mutiny, commenced building a new city wall. It would start from the south-western tower, stretch across the Wuyang stage station, before wrapping all the way around to the south-eastern tower.”^[7]

Although the new South City lay directly on the Pearl River, it was well-protected by the new city wall with moats on the three sides. Even though it was the smallest among the three districts of Guangzhou, the foreign ship area, docks, commercial areas, and wealthy residential areas were all concentrated there, and soon became the commercial and economic heart of Guangzhou.

Currently, on the banks of the Pearl River just outside the Jinghai Gate in the South City, several people were standing. They were wearing straw raincoats^[8] and bamboo hats,^[9] and seemed as if they were searching for something.

The haze and mist lay heavy on the riverbank. There were a dozen or so sailboats moored along this stretch of the river, but through the mist they could only see their dark silhouettes. Looking outwards, Shicui Zhou and Bai’e Tan were concealed in the deep mist, as if they were a bridge between the earth and the sky.

“Son of a bitch, where is that damned Australian ship?” One of them spat angrily.

“Boss Wang, we have been searching for more than ten days. We have looked through all the ships along the river, there’s no such bizarre ship here.”

The man called Boss Wang did not answer. He had looked along this stretch of river for half a day without saying a single word. The middle of the river rippled from the passing of schools of fish, while waves lapped against the craggy rocks that lined the bank. Not far from them a foreign ship was unloading goods, and through the mist they could see porters shuffling cargo from the ship to the dock.

“Brother Wang, I don’t understand. Master is doing well in Zhongzuo,^[10] so why did he suddenly become interested in these Australian merchants, and send us down here to look for them? I have followed master for so many years, travelled across the entire world, but I have still never even heard of Australia!”

Boss Wang snorted coldly, and scolded him: “What bullshit are you spouting? Do you know where we are?! Do you not want to keep your head?”

Everyone fell silent after this reprimand.

After a long pause, Boss Wang finally elaborated: “Although Australia is a place we have never heard about, the goods sold from the Gao family on Haopan street are real. They cannot possibly have appeared out of thin air, no? Guangzhou has been in a frenzy because of them, and everyone and their mother knows about the goods of Australia. Since such a lucrative market comes from overseas, how can us brothers not grasp this chance and make a fortune?” He grinned fiercely, “We must uncover the details of this group of merchants.”

So it turned out that these people were subordinates of Zheng Zhilong, the ‘big bandit’ who had terrorised the two provinces of Fujian and Guangdong. At present, he and his collaborator Li Kuiqi have gathered more than 30,000 people and occupied a series of important coastal islands and seaports across Southern Fujian, such as Zhongzhuo, Gulangyu, Dadan, Lieyu, and Gaopu. They plundered merchant vessels, blackmailed and extorted people, or even invaded inland: burning, slaughtering, and looting. They had already become the hegemon of the coastal seas of southern Fujian.

The group of people turned away from the river, and walked along the pier into the city. Gradually, more and more pedestrians and vendors appeared. After passing the Dragon King Temple, and the Jinghai Gate they entered the city proper. They followed the road to Wuyang Gate, and found themselves before a grand temple, the Tianfei temple, built during the Hongwu period. This was the transportation hub of the South City, a place where people from all over would gather. Pedestrians, sedan chairs and mule carts were mixed together into a chaotic stream. The market was prosperous, and filled with bustling people and noise. Continuous lines of stalls and displays wrapped the crowd like a scarf.

Boss Wang was very cautious. He only skirted the wall, turned a corner, and walked into a back alley. There was a small inn at the base of the city wall. A bamboo curtain, greasy and black from use, hung across the entryway. The group of people discreetly slipped through the curtain. The interior was lit by only a handful of oil lamps hung from the rafters, so it was very dim even though it was daytime. The diners inside filled the cramped space with noise. The ground was wet and slippery from some unknown spilled liquid, and the inn was filled with a strange smell mixed from food, wine, oil, smoke and sweat.

A waiter hurriedly came and greeted them. Boss Wang asked for an empty private room, and ordered some food and wine. Once seated inside their room, they left the curtain half-tied-up, so the brothers sitting at the doorway would have a panoramic overview of the entire inn.

After waiting for a while, a hoodlum walked into the store. He was a middle-aged man with a white complexion and no beard. When the two parties made eye contact, the newcomer wordlessly came to their room and sat down. Without even exchanging greetings, everyone began feasting on the food and drink. Once assured that that there were no plain-clothed fanzi^[11] hidden in the store, Boss Wang asked quietly: “Any news from the brothers on Haopan Street?”

“I have been closely watching the Australians for almost half a month now, but I haven’t seen anything useful. I only saw goods being carried out from the Gao residence one bucket after another on shoulder poles, but I haven’t seen any unusual goods being sent in, nor did I see any out-of-place people.”

“So strange!” Boss Wang didn’t have any appetite, and only stared at the fragrant plate of fried snake with green onions. “How did so many goods get in then?” Could it be a trick? Maybe the Australian goods were not actually shipped from Gao’s residence, and this is all a deliberate cover-up?

“What about Gao’s warehouse on the dock?”

“I have also inquired about that.” He shook his head. “The rules in Gao’s shop are very strict, and we couldn’t find out much. My brothers asked around for many days before they discovered that the warehouse manager had a lover who was a street whore.^[12] Only after we spent some money did we manage to get some information from this woman.” He stopped talking and took a sip of wine.^[13]

Boss Wang knew that this good-for-nothing street rat was taking the opportunity to extort money from him again. He cursed in his heart and said, “I have the silver. But first tell me what did you find out?”

“The warehouse manager said that the Australian goods are never sent or received in the warehouse. Instead, everything came from Gao Ju’s private storeroom in his residence. Not much comes out every time, only a few boxes or so. But each individual item is very valuable.” The middle-aged man said, with greed tinting his eyes.

“How often do they send out goods?”

“Not on a regular schedule, but usually around every 10 days or so.”

This showed that the goods did come from the Gao residence, but that still left the question of how they got in. Gao Ju’s residence was not by the sea, so boats could not sail in. Did the goods fall from the sky?

“Have you checked the things that go into the Gao residence?”

“We asked our nimble third brother, the footman, for help on this matter. He asked for a lot of money…”

“Go on.” Boss Wang said, but he discreetly touched the dagger hidden in his sleeve.

“He asked for ten taels of silver.” The middle-aged man narrowed his eyes and looked at Boss Wang, testing his reaction. Boss Wang wore a dumb smile on his face and didn’t answer; the men around the room were all sneering. The man suddenly remembered who was sitting across from him, and hurriedly continued, “Our third brother ordered people to secretly check the things that the Gao family was bringing in, and there was indeed something strange!”

“Oh? So the goods were smuggled in?”

“No, no, it’s that the things that are brought in and out are a bit weird.”

The man launched into a long-winded story. They had bribed a few of the porters and secretly checked most of the goods that were transported in and out of Gao’s residence in the past month. Before this, the goods going in were mostly porcelain and ironware, while goods coming out were the same. But this month things were different. In addition to the above, a lot of musk, dragon incense, and red sandalwood were transported in. However, the strangest thing was that they never came back out, as if they were like stones thrown into the ocean.

Even after searching for so long, they still had no leads on where the goods came from. Boss Wang sighed in disappointment. If even these street rats close to the ground couldn’t find out anything then it would only be even more difficult if he were to handle it himself.

Boss Wang dug out a dozen foreign coins and sent the man away. Everyone in the party found it unbelievable. They had snuck into Guangzhou city for a month now and gone through countless twists and turns. From their enquiries till today, although they knew where these overseas merchants were roughly staying, they still had no idea where their ships were moored and how their goods were transported. With the street rats digging up nothing useful, they could only wait for the report from the people who were sent to infiltrate Gao’s residence.

After waiting for an even longer period of time, the two people who had snuck into the residence yesterday appeared. One of them had a bruise on his face. Boss Wang saw that their expressions were unstable, and knew that something had gone wrong with their mission.

“The backstreet over there is closed off by fences, so it’s inconvenient to access. We had to climb atop the city wall and circle around. We camped up there for a few days before we found anything strange.” These two people were infamous thieves in the past. Because they committed murder and were sentenced to death, they turned into pirates. This time the Zheng clan paid them a large sum of money in order to bring the two here to Guangzhou.

The two thieves, while on the city wall, had closely observed the people and goods coming in and out of the back door of Gao’s residence. They found that they all actually came from the backyard of another residence. After trying to break into that courtyard and failing, they did see the Australian sea merchants.

“There are four people in total, all dressed in the clothes of this Dynasty, but with their heads shaved like monks.”

Knowing that something was definitely happening in this courtyard, they asked about it further for another two days, and found out that it was originally the secret residence of the Gao family, and now it was being used by the Australian merchants. All the goods were moved from this hidden residence to the Gao’s, while the Gao family also moved goods there.

But this meant that the problem had only come full circle again; they still hadn’t found out where the goods of these merchants came from.

“I originally wanted to listen in on their conversation, but…it's a pity!” The man with a bruise on his face said fiercely, “There’s a martial artist among them. He discovered me the moment I tried to get close, and the rock he threw at me was quick and fierce.

“I think we should pull out all the stops.” Someone whispered, “Why not just ‘flip over the quilt’? Catch the manager of the Gao family, or even Gao Ju himself, and ask them directly!”

Boss Wang snorted, “Catch them? Which merchant on Haopan Street is so easy to mess with? Not to mention that they have hands and eyes everywhere, even the retainers in the residence would be enough to make you suffer.”

“Then let’s catch ourselves a sea merchant.” The man laughed, “If we don’t mess with the Gao family, then it’s not a problem to mess with these merchants, right? They don’t have any backing. I heard from Brother He that there is only one martial artist with them, and no guards from the Gao side. Even if that warrior is built from iron, how many nails can he hammer down at once? We can gather a few more skilled brothers, go in and tie one up, and bring him onto one of our ships. Not to mention a person from Australia, even if he came from atop Kunlun Mountain he would have to explain everything to us. Besides,” he laughed greedily, “if they want to ransom him, don’t they have to take out some good stuff in exchange?”

Everyone cheered loudly when they heard this plan. They all looked expectantly at Boss Wang. Boss Wang thought that this was actually a good idea. Kidnapping a foreign merchant was not a big deal, and Gao Ju would not become angered by it. That would give them some cover for the future.

Thinking of this, Boss Wang began to come up with a plan.

[TN]

The title is making reference to the Chinese saying, “the mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind.”

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1. Yanchi are a special type of wall fortification used to defend waterside installations such as harbours and docks that are otherwise outside of traditional city walls. See e.g. here. ↩︎

2. In April of 1564, sailors from Zhelin, Raoping County, Chaozhou city, formally mutinied due to lack of food and pay; this became known as the ‘Zhelin mutiny’. The ensuing battle that year between the rebels and a coalition of troops from the Guangdong garrison as well as Portugese soldiers from Macau became known as the ‘Battle of Three Gates’. According to modern scholarship, the battle took place at the Sanmen harbour, near Humen, Dongguan. The result was an overwhelming victory by coalition forces, and the mutiny was crushed. This information is taken from this fantastic document from the Center of Macau Studies at the University of Macau. ↩︎

3. These new walls built in 1565 were actual city walls, thus incorporating the commercial districts into the city proper. ↩︎

4. Guang Zhou Tong Zhi (广东通志), literally, Comprehensive Records of Guangzhou. See (only chinese) wiki. ↩︎

5. 42nd year of Jiajing is 1563 Gregorian. Yes, the dates don’t add up. And no, I can’t really be bothered digging deeper. ↩︎

6. This is a special type of official. Censors work for the Imperial Censorate, which was sort of a supervisory watchdog directly under the Emperor. Mostly targeted corruption and malfeasance at all levels of government. To my understanding, Wu Guifang was the censor in charge of Guangzhou City. ↩︎

7. FML. Researching this single paragraph took an entire hour. ↩︎

8. Something like this ↩︎

9. A type of hat ↩︎

10. Zhong Zuo Suo Cheng (中左所成), located in modern-day Xiamen. The base of operations of Zheng Zhilong. ↩︎

11. Fanzi (番子), a corvee that arrested criminals. ↩︎

12. Lit. 半掩门; ‘half-opened door’. Meaning un-licensed prostitutes in ancient China (with status below that of even brothel-workers). ↩︎

13. Ah yes, spending money on a whore…business expense, trust me. ↩︎